Last month, a paralyzed man sent his first tweet using eye movements. A new technology out of France could allow him not only to type, but to draw and sign his name in cursive on a computer.

The technique, described in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology, relies on a novel head-mounted display that uses a camera to track eye movements and then relays that movement data to a computer.

Discovered by a Paris scientist studying optical illusions, the technique tricks the neuromuscular machinery into overcoming a natural phenomenon known as saccadic eye movements.

Try moving your gaze smoothly across a fixed object. Notice your eyes subtly jumping from one point to another? They're "saccading," a movement that would hinder eye writing in much the same way a shaky hand would interfere with handwriting.

To counteract saccades, Jean Lorenceau of Universite Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris created a temporally modulated visual display with a flickering screen that tricks the brain into thinking the eyes are following a moving object.

"We show that one can gain complete, voluntary control over smooth pursuit eye movements," Lorenceau says. "The discovery also provides a tool to use smooth pursuit eye movements as a pencil to draw, write, or generate a signature."